Always
by CherryBerry12
Summary: "Itachi hasn't slept in his home for months, and this is apparently a grave political matter. Personally, Kakashi could care less where he sleeps." Shisui/Itachi, implied Kakashi/Obito. Kakashi-centric


**A/N: Another piece for rarepair bingo! **

"We'd just like you to keep an eye on him, that's all. If it happens often enough that Danzo has heard of it, we would be remiss in not checking."

Kakashi nods once from the floor where he's kneeling on one knee. "Of course, Lord Hokage."

Personally, he can't imagine much happens in the village that escapes Danzo's notice, but that's not exactly an opinion he feels bold enough to voice.

"No need to interfere. I find it very unlikely that Itachi would have gotten into something that would require it." The Hokage takes a long drag of his pipe and blows a cloud of grey smoke that sits heavy in the air, floating sluggishly over his desk. The windows to his office are sealed shut, any airflow to the room stifled by a very interesting need for privacy.

The Hokage gestures with his pipe as he talks, and it isn't the first time Kakashi finds himself drawn to the action, thinking it's where Asuma picked up his habit, one generation passing their vices down to the next.

"Itachi's a trustworthy boy and a reliable shinobi. But I believe it best we know where he has been going."

"Yes, Lord Hokage." Kakashi does not mention the equally likely reason for his restraint: the Uchiha would never tolerate ANBU agents following or interrogating their heir outside of official duties, and they don't have good enough proof that Itachi's done anything wrong.

The interrogation will just have to wait until Kakashi's managed to dig up something a little more exciting.

The Hokage smiles, the wrinkles in the corners of his eyes becoming sharper, wrinkles caused in equal parts by joy and tragedy.

He and Kakashi are the only two shinobi present in his office, even the Hokage's closest guards dismissed before by a casual wave of his hand, which is just one more thing that tells Kakashi this mission isn't just a casual check-up on Itachi.

Even so, the Hokage is determined to act it out that way. Kakashi keeps his head down, and he ignores the too-sweet cloud of tobacco smoke that hangs over his head, and he listens as the Hokage forces a conspiratorial laugh. "Perhaps you might consider it something of a vacation. I will take this to be a private mission, and you need not worry about being assigned another in the meantime."

Kakashi nods again. "Thank you, Lord Hokage."

"You are dismissed, ANBU Hound."

.

.

.

Itachi hasn't slept in his home for months, and this is apparently a grave political matter.

Personally, Kakashi could care less where he sleeps.

Itachi's a kid and, in Kakashi's experience, a rather uncreative one. Intelligent, but not someone Kakashi's expecting to be selling village secrets or sneaking around with one of Danzo's teenage granddaughters.

Kakashi can't quite recall if Itachi is ten or eleven or twelve but, even that young, he doesn't need to ever go home if he doesn't want to. He's earned a legal adulthood and, so long as he continues to come when the seals etched into his ANBU tattoo activate, Kakashi could care less what he does in his spare time.

But Itachi isn't a normal kid, and he's definitely not a normal ANBU.

He's the heir to one of the village's founding clans, and so Kakashi supposes people who think that kind of thing is important would take more than a passing interest in what he does off the clock.

Kakashi eats a quick dinner, tossing unfinished scraps of steak and whole carrots to onlooking ninken, and then he heads off towards the Uchiha District; the sun won't be going down for an hour or so and, according to Danzo's mysterious sources, Itachi was seen prowling around the outskirts of the village long after midnight before he disappeared.

Considering the _Good luck today, Big Brother!_ note Kakashi had to snatch off of the back of Itachi's armor two days ago, Kakashi is willing to assume Itachi has been at least spending some time at home.

Kakashi decides to putz around the Uchiha District for a short while, wearing a black sweater and pants since it's the closest thing he owns to a casual outfit. Around this time of day it's hardly busy at all, but Kakashi does his best not to call any attention to himself, waving to the few friendly Uchiha toddlers still chasing each other around but he keeps his head down all the same, keeping an eye out for a sturdy enough tree branch near the main family's home.

He gives it another hour and, when the sun begins to set, takes cover in a droopy old oak that gives him a decent enough view Itachi's house.

And then he waits.

Out of habit he fishes a book out of his pocket, though he supposes it's going to be rather hard to read from where he is. It's a rather bright night, but moonlight doesn't exactly accommodate reading novels.

As if answering him, a light from the main house clicks on. It's still not enough for him to read from as far away as he is, but it's enough that Kakashi can see Itachi, unpacking a backpack and returning various scrolls and books to an unnaturally orderly room.

Even from a distance Kakashi can see how painfully young Itachi is: his concentrated frown only emphasizes the premature wrinkles around his eyes, and the sharpness of his cheekbones is far from enough to distract from the softness in the rest of his face.

Presumably it's his young age that allows their comrades to so easily overlook his strangeness; they've taken his youth for granted, have become accustomed to ignoring his presence altogether.

This might also be why Kakashi foolishly finds himself thinking that it'll be a simple mission.

That, whatever Itachi is up to, it won't take more than a few hours of poking around to sort out.

Kakashi is stuck waiting for an hour or two as the lights in the main family's home blink out one by one and, several minutes after the last light dies, Itachi eases his bedroom window open and slips out onto the roof, not making a single sound in the process. He's too smart and too well-informed for his own good and so seconds after hopping onto the roof he's crossed it, darting off into a thin sliver of space between two nearby homes.

Kakashi supposes it's his own fault that Itachi knows the placement of the cameras in the district and that, with Sharingan, it's child's play for Itachi to avoid every single one of them.

Thankfully, Kakashi is just slightly more mobile than the average camera.

With a few quick jumps he's cleared the nearest rooftop, following as close behind Itachi as he can manage without making Itachi aware he's being tailed. It's a tracking mission, and if he doesn't need to force a confrontation, Kakashi is going to keep his distance.

Kakashi passes over the alley and gets a partial glimpse of Itachi as he slips around the corner. He moves slow enough that Kakashi won't have any trouble keeping pace, slow enough that Itachi can't know he's being followed just yet. Kakashi hasn't even activated his own Sharingan yet but it's a well-lit night, a few street lamps flickering around every tight corner Itachi passes.

When Itachi sneaks by, there isn't a single footprint left behind in the dust.

Several more corners and they're out of the Uchiha District, passing through a less-populated part of the village adjacent to it, sitting roughly between the district and the outer perimeter of the village.

A curious route, that.

Itachi darts behind a wooden fence and Kakashi follows from the opposite side, tracking him best by brief flickers of shadow as Itachi passes between slats in the fence.

Itachi has never been anything but a model shinobi, a perfectly compliant subordinate. He takes his orders unquestioningly—ignores whatever political beliefs he might have when asked to, slips off his reservations and morals like an unnecessary layer of armor.

He forgets when he's commanded to do so.

Kakashi drops down a couple feet and old shingles take the brunt of his weight, crumbling to dust as he sprints over them. The rooftops are getting lower now, his height advantage dying as he passes over single family residences and tiny storefronts.

Itachi's brand of exceptionalism has always seemed rather straightforward to Kakashi, who's met more than just a few exceptional shinobi in his lifetime. He has the talent to become one of the greatest genjutsu users Konoha has ever produced and yet there's a strictly academic tinge to his technique, a rote perfection that has so far been mistaken for ingenuity.

Kakashi can't bring himself to expect any tricks from someone like that.

Kakashi runs out of rooftops the closer Itachi gets to the village wall, and the area grows bare enough that he's forced to fall back. He concedes a few feet in distance and moves between thinning trees as Itachi approaches the village wall.

Some sort of late night training? An illicit meeting with a Hyuuga girlfriend, perhaps?

Approaching the wall, Itachi stops with a satisfied nod and, without once turning back toward Kakashi, brings his hands together and disappears in a puff of smoke.

A shadow clone.

Kakashi does a quick scan of the forest but he's alone, no trace of Itachi anywhere.

Just Kakashi, the moonlight, and the wall.

The shadow clone must've been some sort of bait or lure, he decides. The real Itachi either slipped out shortly after the clone or left before Kakashi had even gotten there. Or maybe he had never truly been there at all.

Kakashi sighs and begins the long walk back towards the village, towards his apartment, and towards his bed.

He learned long ago, and seemed to somehow forget, that nothing that appears simple is ever truly so when an Uchiha is involved.

Tomorrow, then.

.

.

.

Itachi knows he's being followed.

He has to by now; a few days go by, a few more shadow clones are run to dead ends and disappear without a trace, dragging Kakashi to every obscure, barely touched corner of the village.

Kakashi might even be the slightest bit offended if Itachi hasn't somehow caught onto him by now.

Kakashi wanders through the Uchiha District during the day, checking for any special places Itachi could slip into, wanting a better idea of where Itachi or his shadow clone might try to lead him the next night.

It's not a place where, in the daylight, he can walk freely, and Kakashi keeps his eyes on the road even as older Uchiha turn their heads and squint, never unkindly but, well, not in a way Kakashi finds particularly inviting.

In this part of the village, Kakashi is a marked man. It has been ten years and yet when he passes through the gate to the Uchiha District he is still marked; ten more will pass and he will be marked still.

Sometimes he'll pass an Uchiha in the village proper, the closest to neutral ground he might ever find himself with one of them. It's a place when they are less of an Uchiha and he feels like less of an outsider, like he might even approach them, speak to them.

It's a lightning strike desire that rips through his body, like he wants to strip them down and tear out of his skin, to attack their political kindness with naked honesty:_ Did you know Him? Do you still remember Him? Is He in your dreams, too?_

Itachi is too young to remember what happened, and based on the few curious looks Kakashi has caught him throwing his way it seems likely Itachi doesn't truly know. It occurs to Kakashi that the next generation of Uchiha don't know, won't know, can't possibly understand what happened between him and their clansman. That the discomfort they feel around Kakashi is only inherited; not calculated but bloodborne, instantaneous upon seeing his Sharingan, a visceral reaction to its obvious displacement.

An unthinkable taboo.

Kakashi is a marked man, and every Uchiha child he passes is one who can't possibly remember, one who cannot have known Him or would still know His name.

Kakashi weaves himself into the crowds of Uchiha, a bland, stubborn silver strand among silky blacks and sturdy browns. To spend so much time there is far from necessary but it feels necessary, an immersive shock to his system.

He is, perhaps, not in as much of a hurry to finish his mission as he ought to be.

He reasons that it isn't unusual for an investigation to take a few days, and that it's a few days Kakashi has to catch up on his reading, to tack on a few extra hours of sleep every night.

There's quite obviously some political machinations going on behind the scenes, but Kakashi can play games too.

Kakashi finishes another tour of the Uchiha District and, finding himself with nothing to do until the evening hunt, buys a small bouquet of roses from a bright-eyed Yamanaka girl and walks off to go see the one person who is and always will be waiting for him.

.

.

.

Kakashi lets Itachi get away with it for another week, and then he decides it's time to wrap this mission up. He's had more free time than he knows how to handle, and he can only remain in his room fully-conscious and close-eyed for so long before he feels the itch to be sent out on another mission.

"Not him," Pakkun drawls, not so much as twitching. Kakashi waits as two more Itachis slip out of the window before Pakkun's head jerks up and he growls, low in his throat. "It's that one—that's the real one."

The Hokage said there was no need to confront Itachi, but where's the fun in that?

The real Itachi falls back further into the district instead of running out of it, and Kakashi follows him through the streets and alleys he's learned so well until Itachi stops at one darkened window and, taking a brief look up and down the narrow street, sets his knuckles against the window as if he were about to knock.

Before he can, Kakashi drops down behind him, just loud enough that Itachi won't be able to miss hearing it.

"Fancy seeing you here," he says with a wave to Itachi's turned back.

Itachi is too well-trained to startle, but Kakashi sees his shoulders slump in defeat.

"Senpai," Itachi greets, justifiably wary. He turns slowly, as if he's still somewhere in between fight, flight, and absolute panic, but thankfully he's got enough sense not to lead with his Sharingan.

"Well, this has been a fun couple of nights, hasn't it?"

Itachi flushes, more frustrated than embarrassed. "Senpai, I—"

Kakashi hums, doesn't bother hearing whatever excuse or apology Itachi's come up with. "That window is unlocked."

Itachi blinks, caught off guard by his response, and his eyes flicker down at the window sill, one hand still resting against it. He nods slowly, and pulls his hand away, crossing his arms. "Seems that it is."

Kakashi is familiar enough with the layout of the Uchiha District, was familiar with it long before he was assigned to tail Itachi. He thinks, and then hums again. "This is Uchiha Shisui's house." And, he thinks with dismay, there isn't too much that's interesting about one Uchiha visiting another.

Kakashi knows only bits and pieces of Shisui through their few mutual acquaintances. His father died recently, leaving teenage Shisui a whole house to himself, though word around the other jonin is that Shisui was alone long before then, playing caretaker to his barely lucid father.

Maybe it's something Kakashi can almost understand, but it's hardly something worth an entire investigation.

For a moment Kakashi is convinced he's somehow been tricked again, that Itachi is seconds away from disappearing in a cloud of smoke or dissipating into a flock of crows and, to top it off, Kakashi's blown his cover.

Luck is on his side that day, because Itachi does not, in fact, disappear. Instead, he shifts his weight, inches towards the window. Kakashi wouldn't normally think much of it, except that it blocks his view of the inside of the house.

It's an overly protective move, especially because none of the lights are on, and no one seems to be home.

"I'm allowed to be here," Itachi eventually says, doing his best impression of a serious adult. It fails horribly; he's so unbearably young that it only highlights the unbroken pitch of his voice, the joint shadows and softness around his eyes.

Kakashi raises an eyebrow at him. "Of course you are," but that only makes it all the more interesting. "You're the one who's trying to hide it."

Itachi jerks his head to the side, eyes searching for something off in the village's direction. It's got a lot more caution in it than longing, and Kakashi wonders exactly what he's looking for, who exactly he's got on his mind.

It's a long calculus he seems to be running through, but Kakashi supposes Itachi has no particular reason to trust him, especially after the last week or so.

"It seems to me that it'd be easier if you just started talking," Kakashi offers. "The longer the two of us draw this out, the more—"

"I don't sleep," Itachi finally blurts. He's gone pale in the face, and the hand he again rests on the window sill turns white at the knuckles. "I can't sleep."

"You can't sleep," Kakashi repeats, topping it off with a snort. "Sounds like running around the village all night doesn't help that too much."

Itachi takes a deep breath, and chokes back what Kakashi assumes are some very choice words. "I try. I've tried to sleep at home." He takes another chest-bursting breath, and somehow Kakashi has seen Itachi fight and kill and yet somehow this is the most shaken Kakashi has ever seen him, the most human his perfect little colleague has ever looked. "It doesn't work."

"And so you come here to sleep?" Kakashi has no reason to offer Itachi any sort of excuse, but Itachi nods anyway, grave. Kakashi rubs his chin through his mask, but there's got to be something more here—something he's missing. "Seems like a strange thing to hide, then, if it's so innocent."

"Father doesn't know. About Shisui." Itachi's grip on the window sill tightens. When Kakashi strains his ears he hears, just barely, the sound of someone inside Shisui's house walking up a set of creaking stairs. "Lord Danzo cannot know what…" Itachi crosses his arms again, suddenly fidgety. As if he's never quite learned how to position his hands. "He cannot know about Shisui. That I have been with Shisui."

When Kakashi raises an eyebrow, Itachi lets out a frustrated breath, unusually indignant. Easily more expressive than Kakashi's ever seen him before.

"What we do together is none of your business," Itachi snaps. A second passes and his shoulders sag, drooping with exhaustion. "But I just want to sleep."

"And you can sleep here."

"I—" Itachi blushes, and again Kakashi finds himself unable to fully buy Itachi's excuse, to believe there is nothing here to hide. "Yes. Senpai…" Itachi's forehead wrinkles, and in another context it might even have been cute—for once he looks like a normal child, mulling over some adult problem too complicated even for his genius brain. "Have you ever known someone who… who seems to understand you better than you can understand yourself? Someone who… someone who can tell when you're lying or fooling yourself, even when you yourself don't know. Someone… Someone who is as precious to you as you are to them."

That's a question, Kakashi thinks, that's best left unanswered.

He pivots. "Seems like you're asking me to keep a secret for you."

Itachi's back straightens and gods, when did children start looking so old?

"Shisui has always been that person to me, Senpai." He bows his head, and takes in a fearless, peering-over-the-edge-of-a-cliffside breath. "I… I'd trust Shisui with my life. I… know I'm safe when I sleep here. All I ask is that I be allowed to do so without… without involving others."

Kakashi hums and pretends to think it over, just to watch the honest concern that flashes across Itachi's face.

A little well-deserved fear is the least Kakashi can ask after a week chasing after him, after all.

Kakashi nods, and shushins away.

.

.

.

Kakashi isn't entirely sure if he believes Itachi or not.

Something is definitely off about the whole situation, and Kakashi knows there's a good deal Itachi still isn't telling him.

He's been playing cat and mouse games with Itachi for more than a week now but still something about Itachi eases his worries; Kakashi still can't bring himself to believe a kid as straight-laced as he is would be capable of anything that warrants reporting. That, even if he is up to something less-than-chaste (though, admittedly, Kakashi finds himself doubting even that) with his cousin, that it's nothing he or the Hokage or Danzo have any business knowing.

Kakashi has spent enough foggy nights wandering around his own kitchen to understand Itachi's desperation. He's lived through enough aimless twilights stumbling over misplaced shoes and sleeping dogs, mechanically packing and repacking his gear until the repetition begins to resemble a form of sleep.

Sleep is an altar where ANBU worship, where they pray to an entity too unknowable for them to embrace. It's a two-faced god of horror and peace, and Kakashi finds it hard to begrudge Itachi an opportunity to approach it and receive the greatest gift it can bestow upon a shinobi: sleep without dreams, and rest without memory.

Itachi is, even after all this time, still a child.

But more importantly he is an ANBU, a competent shinobi, and it is not up to Kakashi to judge how Itachi copes, so long as he continues to do so.

.

.

.

"Kittens," the Hokage repeats.

"Strange, isn't it?"

The Hokage holds out his pipe and watches the smoke rise from it. For a moment he seems lost in it, something tugging at his memory, but the smoke disperses with an impatient wave of his hand, taking that thought along with it. "I find it unlikely that the heir of the Uchiha Clan has been sneaking around to care for kittens."

"Maa, I did as well. He's an odd child, isn't he?" Kakashi scratches his chin, and shrugs thoughtfully. "The Uchiha have interesting connections to ninneko, don't they? Pakkun wasn't too pleased about it. Seems to me he might be building himself a secret army of summons."

"Kakashi…" The Third sighs. "Kakashi, I would not have assigned this mission you if I did not believe there was something curious going on. I want you to be honest with me about what you saw."

Ah, it's Kakashi now.

It's a valid tactic, establishing a personal connection to combat whatever sympathy Itachi might have inspired, but the Hokage doesn't seem to realize ANBU Hound is a lot more likely to answer him than Kakashi is.

"I'm afraid whatever Shimura-san must have heard was wrong," Kakashi says, and he lets that linger there for a moment, because he can imagine a snake like Shimura Danzo would find Itachi's secret very valuable, though whether or not the village would benefit from it is highly questionable. And, of course, Kakashi wants to remind the Third that it is the village, and not Danzo, that Kakashi serves. "I guess Itachi just has a soft spot we've never noticed before."

.

.

.

The Third is kind enough not to mention this conversation when, three months later, Uchiha Shisui's eyeless, lifeless body washes up on the shore of the Nakano River, tangled in weeds.

**Thanks to everyone for reading! Please comment/favorite if you enjoyed it and have the time! 3**


End file.
